News

Today’s release brings several bug fixes to Call of War. We fixed a rally point issue that bothered some of our desktop players, explained to units how to avoid detours on the map and resolved several issues on the 1.5 versions of the “Clash of Nations” and “World at War” maps.

Please find a complete list of today’s bug fixes below.

Bug fixes:

We fixed an issue that prevented rally points of provinces from working correctly on desktop when set rally points were not a province center.

We resolved an issue that could cause units to take extensive detours when sent from a province center to another location on the map.

We fixed an issue that could cause patrolling airplanes to deal massive amounts of damage in a single combat round.

We resolved several issues on the 100 player “World at War 1.5” map.

We fixed an issue that prevented the background image from being displayed correctly when playing the 1.5 version of the 100 players “World at War” scenario with standard graphic settings.

We added airstrips and interceptors to all player nations that were missing them.

Our next test phase of Call of War 1.5 is starting on May 25th 2020. We already told you about Doctrines, Attack Bombers and Rocket Artilleries last week, but there is so much more!

Runtime
Let’s start with how long we plan on keeping this test phase running for. You might have noticed that we did not call it an ‘event’, like we did with previous iterations of Call of War 1.5. That is because we are confident enough to have Call of War 1.5 run longer than ever before. This test phase has an open end. You will be able to sign up for new game rounds not only this weekend, but also the week after, the following weekend and the week after that etc…

More Maps
So far all our Call of War 1.5 tests were done on the 22 player “Clash of Nations” map. This time we want to scale things up a bit. We took the time to make the beloved 100 player “World at War” map Call of War 1.5 ready! This classic map will be available during the test as well. During the Call of War 1.5 test phase there will be a CoW 1.5 version and a CoW 1.0 versions of both maps available to players. The 100 player map also features all four of the new Doctrines on one map, so don’t miss out on the fun! We are already working on other maps to get them ready for Call of War 1.5, so more maps are coming soon!

Paratroopers
With Call of War 1.5 paratroopers get a feature the community has been asking for, a ‘convert feature’. This new feature allows generals to have their paratroopers board a plane again, after they got deployed. The ‘convert feature’ converts the paratrooper from an infantry back to a plane. This can be done anywhere on the map, but we highly recommend to do it in a province with an airstrip. Converting a Paratrooper will cost time and money. This makes paratroopers much more flexible and a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield!

Game Ending Timer
All Call of War 1.5 game rounds have a maximum run time, the same way events have them. When the time is up, the player or coalition with the most points wins the game round. Game ending timers prevent long running games with a low amount of active players from continuing, to avoid straining our game servers. For now, smaller maps will run 5 weeks, medium sized maps will run 7 weeks and large maps will run 10 weeks, if not won earlier. With the implementation of the end game timer only system generated maps will be affected. However, user generated maps will receive a game ending timer at a later stage as well.

Interface changes
The new test phase of Call of War 1.5 also brings an overhaul of the user interface to allow the new Doctrines being highlighted in various menus throughout the game. You will notice that with the new interface historical unit names are featured more prominently in the production menu and in the unit details panel. With the new interface we also disabled production and rally point buttons for rural provinces, as production is limited to urban provinces in Call of War 1.5. This significant change in Call of War 1.5 is also reflected when toggling through provinces in a game round. You now switch from urban provinces to other urban provinces and from rural provinces to other rural provinces.

Balancing changes
Last but not least, there are a lot of balancing changes in this latest version of Call of War 1.5! Like in the past, these balancing changes are heavily influenced by the community feedback we received in the last test event. We will focus on the main changes in this article, but you can find a more detailed list with all changes in the forums.

Research does not cost manpower anymore. We replaced previous manpower costs by normal resources costs, specific to each unit.

We rebalanced resources in general to alleviate resource constraints players experienced especially in the early stages of our last test event.

The stack limit at which additional units do not add any more damage to an army is lowered from 15 to 10 units.

Upgrading costs were reduced from 100% to 50% of the target level price.

We added a new “Local Port” building, that allows units to embark or disembark faster in rural provinces.

Apart from these big changes we did a lot of fine grained balancing changes to individual units related to the community feedback, the new Doctrines and the new units in the game. Check out the forum post containing all the details. Let us know what you think there and share your experiences over the next couple of weeks while you play Call of War 1.5. We are eager to hear from you!

The following list describes which balancing changes happened from the second CoW1.5 iteration (from March) to the third CoW1.5 iteration (from May). It does not describe changes from the current CoW 1.0 version to CoW 1.5. You can find a general list of changes from CoW1.0 to CoW1.5 in the manual.

Building balancing

Added an inexpensive Local Port building which reduces the embarking/disembarking times in rural provinces.

Reduced costs for Infrastructure to make building it more worthwhile.

Reduced costs for Airstrip to make building it more worthwhile.

Decreased costs of Industry and reduced resource boost of Industry from 125% to 100%.

This reduces the gap between players who can afford to peacefully build up their economy and players who can not due to wars.

The building still armortises after 5-6 days considering its reduced costs.

Decreased costs of Local Industry and reduced resource boost of Local Industry from 250% to 200%.

This reduces the gap between players who can afford to peacefully build up their economy and players who can not due to wars.

The building still armortises after 5-6 days considering its reduced costs.

Decreased costs of all 6 production buildings to make leveling them up more viable.

Unit balancing

Decreased overall unit costs to enable production of more units.

Increased movement speed for all units by 15% to better match the faster build times.

Reduced HP values of Battleships and Cruisers as they were a bit too tanky in the early game.

Reduced overall damage of air convoys to make it more viable to surprise attack airplanes on the ground.

Increased anti ship damage of Cruisers and Battleships slightly to position them better as ship counters.

Decreased costs of Anti Tank & Tank Destroyer slightly to make building them more viable.

Today’s release implements ‘early war’ and ‘late war’ modells for several units in Call of War! This means that units change their visuals when they reach a certain research level!

The community has been asking for a long time to have high level units look differently on the map than their low level counterparts. We are very excited to finally bring this feature to the game!

With today’s release Armored Cars, Light Tanks, Medium Tanks, Heavy Tanks and Tank Destroyers will change their appearances on the map as soon as they reach a certain research level. Not only does it look amazing, it also gives you visual feedback on your progress and makes it easier to see your and your enemies’ unit level! Other units will follow in the future.

Next to the additional visuals we also fixed several bugs in the game. Check out the following complete list of the changes:

New Feature:

We implemented a feature that changes the appearance of several units when they are high level units. Units with different skins are:

Armored Car

Light Tank

Medium Tank

Heavy Tank

Tank Destroyer

Bug fixes:

We resolved an issue that prevented planes to be displayed correctly on the map, when plane was given commands when sent from or to an aircraft carrier.

We resolved a bug that could cause planes converting to convoy ships, when aborting a patrol mission or attack order started from an aircraft carrier.

We fixed an issue that could cause planes of one aircraft carrier staying behind at sea, when two aircraft carriers got merged.

We resolved an issue that prevented provinces from revolting when no army was stationed in the province.

We fixed a bug on Desktop that caused certain buttons to disappear from the army bar when multiple units were given orders using the lasso tool.

We resolved an issue that caused some borders on the 22 player ‘Europe Clash of Nations’ map being displayed incorrectly.

We resolved an issue that could cause graphical artifacts being displayed on the 22 player ‘Europe Clash of Nations’ map when selecting a province.

We fixed a bug that prevented some links in the iOS app from working on the opening screen after the app was installed.

We resolved an issue that caused the wrong text being displayed in the ‘Rewards” tab in the newspaper of POI game rounds.

We hope you like the new look and feel of Call of War with the new unit skins and we wish you best of luck on the battlefield!

With the next phase of Call of War 1.5 we are taking things a lot further than before! One of the major changes is the introduction of Doctrines in Call of War 1.5!

Doctrines will make a huge difference in how you play a nation, so it is important to understand what the Doctrine of your country is and how to take advantage of its strengths and how to compensate for its weaknesses.

In any Call of War 1.5 game round the country you pick will have one of four Doctrines, each having a distinguishable aspect to it. A country’s Doctrine is displayed on the country selection screen next to the available country. Doctrines are visualized throughout the game round to make sure you are able to immediately tell what Doctrine a country has - your own, as well as your allies and enemies. This is especially helpful when you play several game rounds at the same time and frequently switch between them.

The four available Doctrines are:

Axis
Countries with the Axis doctrine have a very powerful and sophisticated military, capable of attacking the enemy with brutal force, but also robust enough to take an extra hit, where other units might have been taken out already. This impressive power however, comes with an extra cost. While units of Axis countries are a tough opponent in battle, they come with a higher price tag than units of countries with a different doctrine.

Allies
The allied forces are masters of optimization. These countries’ strengths lie in their ability to adapt quickly and optimize production and research. Countries with the Allies doctrine produce units quicker and research faster than any other doctrine. Their research costs are lower, too. However, these advantages come at the price of a lower unit movement speed.

Comintern
Countries with the Comintern doctrine don’t wait for the latest development of high-tech weaponry, when they see the possibility to just trample the enemy into the ground with overwhelming numbers. Comintern forces may deal slightly less damage, but the lower production and upkeep costs allow these nations to bring vast numbers of troops to any battlefield.

Pan-Asian
Pan-Asian countries don’t use brute force or drown the enemy with large amounts of units. These nations make the most of preparing surprise attacks and take advantage of technology and terrains alike. Units of Pan-Asian countries not only move fast, but are also always aware of their surroundings. They have a higher view range than any other doctrine and make the best of the terrain they are fighting in. They are more vulnerable than other nations though.

There is much more in-depth knowledge to learn about Doctrines - e.g. Doctrines have effects on specific units - so we prepared a dedicated Doctrine page in our game manual which you can find here.

We are eager to hear your thoughts and feedback on Doctrines in Call of War 1.5 and cannot wait to share more exciting news about our next update to CoW 1.5. Call of War 1.5 will be available to all of you very soon.